The sixteen and a half-acre complex known as the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts is the cultural jewel of New York City. Perhaps only the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the East Side dedicates as much energy, and finances, to artistic excellence as does Lincoln Center.
It all began when illustrious philanthropist John Rockefeller 3rd, as part of the urban renewal program in the 1950s, initiated the Lincoln Center Project on Lincoln Square to provide the city with a performing arts nucleus. He raised half of the one hundred and four million dollars needed for the construction of the center, dipping into his own Rockefeller Brothers Fund to put up a large percentage of the money.
Lincoln Center consists of three buildings: the Avery Fisher Hall, built in 1962, the David H. Koch Theater, built in 1964, and the world famous Metropolitan Opera House, built in 1966. The Avery Fisher Hall, which originally was just called the Philharmonic Hall, stands on the right if you face the fountain in the center of the square. It was designed by architect Max Abramovitz and housed the New York Philharmonic, which moved there from Carnegie Hall. In 1973 a violinist and audio specialist by the name of Avery Robert Fisher made a donation of ten and a half million dollars to the Philharmonic Hall, which immediately changed its name to honor the generous patron. To enhance the acoustics the auditorium has undergone renovation three times and is expected to be modified again in 2017.
No other personality is more associated with the New York Philharmonic than world-acclaimed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein conducted the gala opening concert in the Philharmonic Hall in 1962, which included works by Mahler and Beethoven, and remained the New York Philharmonic's musical director until 1970. His most famous score was for the musical, West Side Story. He was a prolific composer and also a tireless promoter of Gustav Mahler, going to the grave in 1990 with a copy of Mahler's Fifth Symphony on his chest.
The New York Philharmonic has had a host of other celebrated musical directors over the years such as Zubin Mehta, from 1978 to 1991, and Kurt Masur, from 1991 to 2002. The most popular musical festival held at the Avery Fisher Hall is the annual Most Mozart Festival, which welcomes a cornucopia of international conductors vying to conjure the spirit of the genius from Salzburg. The Hall's seating capacity is roughly 2,600 seats.
The David H. Koch Theater, standing on the south side of the square, to the left of the fountain, was designed by architect Philip Johnson and built with funding from the State of New York. It was used for the World Fair of 1964-1965, and after was bequeathed to the City of New York. The city currently leases the theater to Lincoln Center and it is managed by the City Center of Music and Drama.
Originally called the New York State Theater, it has been home to the New York City Ballet since its opening in 1964 and from 1964 to 2011 housed the New York City Opera. In 2008 oil and gas magnate David H. Koch undertook to allot one hundred million dollars over ten years for the theater's renovation as long as the theater keeps his name for at least fifty years. The theater has four main balconies and 2,560 seats.
The New York City Ballet, the Koch Theater's principal attraction, was established in 1948 by Russian ballet master George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, and besides Balanchine, had Broadway luminary Jerome Robbins as a founding choreographer. Among the New York City Ballet's star performers have been Native American Elizabeth Tallchief, Patricia McBride, the French Tanaquil Le Clercq and Russian Mikhail Baryshnikov. Today the Koch Theater hosts ballet companies from all over the world, with the most popular being the Bolshoi from Moscow. Balanchine's influence must have been so strong that he left the New York City public longing to see the Russian ballet tradition over and over.
In the middle of the square stands the most famous edifice of the three: the Metropolitan Opera House. With its 3,800 seats and 195 standing room places, the Met, as New Yorkers call it, is one of the leading opera houses in the world. The building was designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison to replace the first Metropolitan Opera House that stood on 39th Street and Broadway. The Met's façade at Lincoln Center makes it one of the most distinctive and easily recognized structures of New York City. Through the glass in the arches we can see two gigantic murals painted by Marc Chagall in the 1940s. About thirty feet high and thirty-six feet wide, the murals are titled the Triumph of Music, on the south wall, and the Sources of Music on the north. In the lobby, besides the sculptures by Aristide Maillol and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, eleven crystal chandeliers allude to fiery constellations and starbursts, while the auditorium itself boasts twenty-one chandeliers - a gift of the Austrian government - the largest of which measures 18 feet in diameter.
However, the main attraction of the Metropolitan Opera House is obviously the Metropolitan Opera Company itself. Although the house officially opened in September 1966 with the premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, its first public performance had been a few months earlier, in April, when the company put on Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West in front of three thousand high school students.
Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, the Met has always been one of the top ten opera houses in the world. This is certainly due to the leadership of Jewish-Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, who was the Met's principal conductor from 1908 to 1910. It was Mahler who internationalized the opera house and who brought to New York the excellence of the Viennese musical tradition. Mahler was succeeded by Arturo Toscanini, the first Italian to conduct on the Met's stage. Though Toscanini's tenure at the Met lasted only five years and he returned to Italy, it was his second visit to the United States in the 30s and his staunch anti-fascist stance that made him a household name. In fact, he decided to remain in America and died in Riverdale, in the Bronx. Other notable principal conductors at the Met have been Hungarian George Szell, Greek Dimitri Mitropoulos, Austrian Kurt Adler, American James Levine and the Russian guest conductor Valery Gergiev.
When the opera company is on vacation in the spring, the Metropolitan Opera House hosts the American Ballet Theatre. The structure also regularly accommodates the Kirov, Bolshoi and La Scala opera companies. There is probably not a single week in which the stage is bare and the curtains are closed.
In the summer, in the Damrosch Park to the left of the Metropolitan Opera House, an outdoor amphitheater serves as a stage for free concerts with all types of music. The park is a great place to stroll about, grab a glass of wine and relax to the sounds of a funky electric guitar or a wistful harp. To the right of the opera house is the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, a research center with one of the world's vastest collections of materials on the performing arts. Among the other twenty-five facilities located at the Lincoln Center compound we will find the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the only Broadway-type theater that is not located in the Theater District; the Film Society of Lincoln Center, bringing to the public independent and international films; the School of American Ballet; Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School. Even if one is not an opera, ballet or philharmonic lover, a visit to Lincoln Center is a must for anyone interested in feeling the cultural vibe of New York City.